SPANISH MASS IN HONOR OF OUR LADY OF THE CLOUD

A Spanish Mass will take place this Saturday, July 9 at 1:30PM in honor of Our Lady of the Cloud. The devotion to The Virgin of the Cloud, La Virgen de la Nube, is from Ecuador. It originated 85 years after the Archbishop of Quito blessed the miraculous statue of Our Lady of Good Success on February 2, 1611. Here is the story of the miracle of Our Lady of the Cloud.

At the end of the year 1696, the Bishop of Quito, Don Sancho de Andrade y Figueroa, was very ill. Disconsolate at the thought of losing their Bishop, the people of Guálupo, a village on the outskirts of Quito, decided to organize a novena to the Virgin Mary asking her for his recovery.

On December 30, they organized a Rosary procession from the town of Guálupo to the Cathedral in Quito. On the return trip, at around 4:30 in the afternoon, Fr. José de Ulloa y la Cadena, chaplain of the Monastery of the Immaculate Conception of Quito, was leading the group in the praying of the Rosary. He was just beginning to recite the third decade of the Glorious Mysteries when he looked up and saw a figure forming in a large cloud in the late afternoon sky. He pointed to the east and exclaimed to the crowd: “The Virgin! The Virgin!”

In the sky between the sanctuaries of Guálupo and Quito, the Blessed Virgin appeared standing on a cloud somewhat darker and denser than the others, which served as her pedestal. She wore a crown on her head and carried a bunch of lilies in her right hand like a scepter. In her left hand she carried her Divine Son. She was dressed in a white silk tunic that draped to her feet in soft pleats, half hidden by a majestic mantle. On her head was a long filmy white veil.

This apparition, which was viewed by the close to 500 persons in the procession as well as many others in the environs of Quito, lasted for the length of a Glory be and the praying of one Our Father and one Hail Mary. Testimonies of the miracle include those of the President of the Royal Chamber Don Mateo de Mata Ponce de León and other respected town officials. All the testimonies are carefully conserved today in the Archives of the Quito Archdiocese.

As confirmation of the miracle, the Bishop was immediately healed. Soon afterward, he authorized the cult to the Virgin under the invocation The Virgin of the Cloud, and erected an altar to her in the Cathedral of Quito. The Bishop, who remained very devoted to the Blessed Virgin and the Rosary, lived some years more, dying in May of 1702.

News of the miracle spread rapidly throughout that province and soon arrived in Peru. Some years later, the Prioress of the Monastery of the Nazarene Mothers, Mother Barbara Josefa of the Holy Trinity, received permission for a picture painted on linen of the Virgin of the Cloud to be carried in the annual October procession through the streets of Lima. This invocation to Our Lady remains very popular in Lima today.

In Ecuador, a grand procession honoring the Virgin of the Cloud is held every year on January 1 in the city of Azogues. It is organized by the Franciscans who constructed a large sanctuary in that city dedicated to the Virgin of the Cloud.

This devotion has also spread to the United States. Immigrants from Ecuador in Chicago and New York have confraternities dedicated to Our Lady of the Cloud and have annual festivities in her honor.